We landed in the cove, and were surprised to find it in shadow.  The afternoon was far advanced.  Over the hill we dragged ourselves, and down to the spring.  There the men threw themselves flat and drank in great gulps until they could drink no more.  We built a fire, but the Nigger refused to cook.

“Someone else turn,” he growled, “I cook aboard ship.”

Perdosa, who had hewed the fuel, at once became angry.

“I cut heem de wood!” he said, “I do my share; eef I cut heem de wood you mus’ cook heem de grub!”

But the Nigger shook his head, and Perdosa went into an ecstasy of rage.  He kicked the fire to pieces; he scattered the unburned wood up and down the beach; he even threw some of it into the sea.

“Eef you no cook heem de grub, you no hab my wood!” he shrieked, with enough oaths to sink his soul.

Finally Pulz interfered.

“Here you damn foreigners,” said he, “quit it!  Let up, I say!  We got to eat.  You let that wood alone, or you’ll pick it up again!”

Perdosa sprang at him with a screech.  Pulz was small but nimble, and understood rough and tumble fighting.  He met Perdosa’s rush with two swift blows—­a short arm jab and an upper-cut.  Then they clinched, and in a moment were rolling over and over just beyond the wash of the surf.

The row waked the Nigger from his sullen abstraction.  He seemed to come to himself with a start; his eye fell surprisedly on the combatants, then lit up with an unholy joy.  He drew his knife and crept down on the fighters.  It was too good an opportunity to pay off the Mexican.

But Thrackles interfered sharply.

“Come off!” he commanded.  “None o’ that!”

“Go to hell!” growled the Nigger.

A great rage fell on them all, blind and terrible, like that leading to the slaughter of the seals.  They fought indiscriminately, hitting at each other with fists and knives.  It was difficult to tell who was against whom.  The sound of heavy breathing, dull blows, the tear of cloth; and grunts of punishment received; the swirl of the sand, the heave of struggling bodies, all riveted my attention, so that I did not see Captain Ezra Selover until he stood almost at my elbow.  “Stop!” he shrieked in his high, falsetto voice.

And would you believe it, even through the blood haze of their combat the men heard him, and heeded.  They drew reluctantly apart, got to their feet, stood looking at him through reeking brows half submissive and half defiant.  The bull-headed Thrackles even took a half step forward, but froze in his tracks when Old Scrubs looked at him.

“I hire you men to fight when I tell you to, and only then,” said the captain sternly.  “What does this mean?”

He menaced them one after another with his eyes, and one after another they quailed.  All their plottings, their threats, their dangerousness dissipated like mist before the command of this one resolute man.  These pirates who had seemed so dreadful to me, now were nothing more than cringing schoolboys before their master.